Teresa Richards

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Thursday, July 26, 2018

At least, that’s
what Marina’s dad says when she wins the grand prize of five thousand dollars a
day—for life—after playing Windfall. Despite his warning, she’s determined to
live it up, and she has no problem burning bridges along the way. But not all
wins are good, and what you see is not always what you get.

To celebrate the release of The Windfall App (find it here), I'm giving away a YA book bundle, including a copy of Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins, Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond, and of course The Windfall App by Teresa Richards.

Follow the book tour for early reviews of The Windfall App, interviews, and spotlights. And, of course, enter to win the giveaway. Here are the tour stops:

The Rafflecopter giveaway will be live at each of these sites, and you can enter multiple times throughout the blog tour, so the more blogs you visit, the higher your chances are for winning. Please note that the giveaway for the books pictured is only available to US addresses. Internationally, ebooks will be sent. Good luck!

Thursday, July 19, 2018

My new YA novel, The Windfall App, releases in just over a week! The Windfall App is different from my previous publications--there is no
magic, no time travel, and and no twisted fairytales. This book is a
contemporary suspense about a girl who wins the lottery only to learn
that the game has been tampered with and her prize comes with strings
attached. Here's a short little blurb:

Free money is not
a gift. It’s a curse.

At least, that’s
what Marina’s dad says when she wins the grand prize of five thousand dollars a
day—for life—after playing Windfall. Despite his warning, she’s determined to
live it up, and she has no problem burning bridges along the way. But not all
wins are good ones, and what you see is not always what you get.

There's a full blurb on my website, if you're interested in learning more. I'm so excited for you all to meet Marina--piano prodigy and closet alternative rock junkie--and to fall in love with the city of my heart, The City by the Bay.

The Windfall App is set in San Francisco. I grew up in a town nearby and went to the city often, so I'm kind-of in love with
the place. My grandfather worked for the railroad in San Francisco in
the 1950's and came to know the city so well that whenever we'd have
visitors, he'd take them on a private tour. His tours became something
that family members and friends would look forward to when they came to
visit. (Fun fact: my grandparents got engaged at Stow Lake, which is a little spot in Golden Gate Park where visitors can rent paddle boats and take a break from city life. In my book, Marina mentions Stow Lake when she's making up a fake newspaper headline in an attempt to joke around with her dad.)

All joking aside, many of the places in The Windfall App were places I visited with
my grandpa, and many of the things Marina loves to do were inspired by
my childhood trips to the city. On one such trip, we went to a park and slid down giant concrete slides
on old pieces of cardboard. In my story, Marina and her friends frequent
a similar spot called the Seward Street Slides. These aren't the same
ones I went to as a kid, but they're the same idea.

Recently, I took two of my close friends--one my critique partner and
one my sensitivity reader--and we set out to find the Seward Street
Slides. They are tucked away in a little neighborhood, sandwiched
between houses and hills, as everything in the city is. We took some
videos of us playing on the slides. Click here to watch them. And here are some pics:

Stay tuned for some giveaways and contests in the next few weeks as we celebrate the release of The Windfall App! And check back here on July 27th for the blog tour schedule--I'll be giving away a YA book bundle, and there will be lots of chances to enter over the course of the tour.

Friday, January 5, 2018

2017 sure was busy. My second book came out (yay!) and the year was full of book festivals, writing conferences, school visits, individual signings, and one craft fair. I met a ton of awesome readers this year, and taught writing workshops to both middle and high schoolers (which I'm learning is one of my favorite aspects of being an author). I also shared signing tables with some fantastic authors this year, and feel honored and humbled to be able to count these talented people as my friends.

During my blog tour for Topaz Reign, one of the bloggers asked me if I had pictures of my characters that I used as inspiration while I was writing the book. I don't normally do a collection of pictures before writing, like some authors do, because it becomes a rabbit hole and I end up wasting a lot of time searching for pictures and never finding the exact right ones.

But when I went looking for pics to help answer this blogger's question, I ended up finding four perfect images of the main characters in Topaz Reign right away. And I'm so excited to finally have pictures of the characters that have been living in my head for so long, that I had to share them here.

So to start the new year, here are Maggie, Garon, Lindy and Trevin. They will soon be joined by others, as the cast of characters I've created continues to grow. I'll spend 2018 like I've spent the past five years--working to bring stories that matter, stories that uplift, and stories that entertain to my readers.

Maggie:

Garon:

Lindy (except picture her in a castle, not a car):

Trevin:

Many thanks to blogger Brookie Cowles for inspiring me to find these pictures.

Fairy tales are simply tales, told and
re-told, but changed over time.

It
has been four months since Maggie learned
the dark truth behind the tale of the Princess and the Pea and freed
Princess
Lindy from the cursed Emerald. Lindy is now back in the past where she
belongs, queen of her tiny Scandinavian country, and Maggie is a fully
reformed
ex-stalker.

Except … she can’t stop doing internet
searches on Lindy and her country.

One morning, Maggie wakes to find history
turned on its head. Apparently, you can’t destroy a centuries-old curse without
consequence. In order to prevent the changes in history from wiping out the
present, Maggie resurrects her stalking gene and learns that fairy tales don’t
stay dead for long.

Or at all.

Back in 1623, Lindy is juggling a threat to
her family, a handsome new guard she’s not supposed to have feelings for, and a
cursed Topaz with ties to the tale of Thumbelina. When past and present
collide, Lindy and Maggie are brought together again, and another of Andersen’s
tales turns from twisted fiction to chilling fact.

*

Winner will be announced at the beginning of this post once the giveaway ends.

“What
the what?” You say. “I’ve heard about plot and pacing and world building and
character development, but what is this motivation-reaction witchcraft you
speak of?”

Well. I’m
so glad you asked.

Have
you ever had a scene with a big reveal or shock or scare, but once your big
bang happened, things just felt sort-of off? If so, there’s a good chance your
motivation-reaction units need looking at.

At it’s
core, a motivation-reaction unit, or MRU, just means that when something
happens, there’s a motivation (a stimulus) and a reaction (how the characters
react to the stimulus). We have Dwight V. Swain, author of Techniques of the
Selling Writerto thank for identifying this little nugget of knowledge
we call the MRU.

The
motivation part is pretty easy. Something crazy happens. Done.

Problems
often arise, however, in the reaction part of the MRU. When something
crazy/scary/shocking happens, humans react in several ways. These feelings
happen in such quick succession, that it’s often hard to separate them out, but
they are all different parts of a reaction. And they happen in this order:

1: There’s
an unconscious internal reaction—a feeling

Nervous.
Happy. Terrified.

2: There’s
an unconscious physical reaction—a reflex in response to how we are feeling

3: Then
there are conscious physical reactions—what we say (if anything) and what we do.

“I
can’t believe you forgot my birthday,” and the character starts to cry.

“I
can’t believe she wore socks with her Chacos,” and then the mean girls blast a
picture out on Instagram.

Or, if
the motivation is a rabid werewolf apparition, a la ghostbusters, the physical
reaction will just be to run.

Now,
all of these things happen in our reactions, but you don’t need to list every
single thing in a character’s reaction every time there’s a motivation in your
book. Actually, please don’t. If you do, it will clog up the flow and slow the
pacing way down. It’s okay to let the reader imagine one of more parts of the
character’s reaction when something happens in your story. But in pivotal scenes,
when the tension is high, the reaction you include on the page should contain
more than one of the three parts above.

And—here’s
where many beginner writers go wrong—THE REACTIONS MUST BE IN THE RIGHT ORDER,
and THEY MUST COME AFTER THE MOTIVATION!

We
never react to a stimulus before feeling that initial burst of fear or anger or
whatever, and when our characters do this, something feels off.

As an
example, let’s take our undead werewolf monster from above.

Lucy heard a noise.

She crept around a corner and when she rounded it, the
sight made her scream.

She ran, her blood racing through her body, as an angry
werewolf apparition jumped out at her.

It roared, its yellow eyes hungry for a kill.

Something
about this passage seems off, yes? The first problem is that Lucy’s reaction
comes before the werewolf actually jumps out at her. As a writer, it’s really
tempting to keep our readers in suspense, so we make our characters react
first, and then reveal the horrible motivator behind their reaction in hopes of
getting a bigger reaction out of our reader. But this doesn’t work for a
reader, because if we do this, they are no longer experiencing the story along
with the main character. It starts to feel inauthentic, and will pull the
reader out of the story.

So.
Always put the motivator first.

Then,
in the reaction part of this example, Lucy reacts physically (screaming and
running) before she reacts internally (her blood racing through her body). In
other words, she reacts on purpose before she reacts automatically. And this
never rings true. The first thing that should happen when Lucy sees the
apparition is her blood racing through her body. This is an immediate reaction
that she doesn’t control and takes no thought for. She hasn’t really even
processed what she’s seeing yet. After that visceral reaction, then she starts
to think. Her brain kicks into gear, and she can then scream and run away.

Here’s
a better version of the above example:

The undead werewolf jumped out at her, roaring, its
yellow eyes hungry for a kill.

Lucy’s blood turned to ice. Her lower lip trembled, the
only part of her that seemed able to move.

The monster roared.

She screamed, and her limbs unfroze. She ran.

Can you
see the difference? First the motivation happens (the werewolf jumping out at
her). Then her response is 1: a feeling of fear, which manifests by her blood
turning to ice, 2: an immediate physical reaction in response to the fear—her
lip trembling, 3: conscious action—screaming and running away.

This
example was one of fear, but MRU’s come into play all the time, whether your
motivation is something sad like losing a pet, something embarrassing like a
bad Instagram post going viral, or something climactic like when the romantic
tension peaks and they finally kiss already. Anytime something happens—especially
when it’s something big—make sure your characters’ reactions happen in the
right order so that they ring true.

If you
really want to have some fun, pay attention to what happens inside you the next
time someone surprises you or scares you or ticks you off. Break down your
reactions in order (after you’ve cooled off) and study them. It will make you a
better writer.